No non-colonial democracy has managed to go from underdeveloped to developed since WW2.
SK, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Chile and Malaysia all had their key growth during authoritarian regimes. Many later transitioned to democracies, but that's easy when the hard part is done.
Sadly, I reached this when desperately looking for a democratic country for India (my home country) to emulate as a model. As a believer in democracy, I would love to be corrected. But my research indicates that Demovracy does truly have a shoddy track record at spurring development.
At the same time there are counter examples of North Korea, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and India (since 2014) a authoritarian rule bring more economic downfall with concentration of power and wealth in the hands of selected few.
Indeed the most interesting example in this is India where growth, prosperity and position on human development index became better when it was free than at present when it is partly free.
China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan grown exponentially not due to authoritarian rule but due to the hard work of their people and in the belief that with hard work they can change life (very much embedded in Confucius teachings). The only thing government did was not to come in the way of the people to have better life through hard work.
South Korea expanded rapidly during a military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s[1]. A large chunk of of their economy was (is??) tied to huge conglomerates with major ties to the government known as Chaebols[2].
> The only thing government did was not to come in the way of the people to have better life through hard work.
At least in the case of South Korea, that is demonstrably false. There were, and are, lots of links between these large, successful international Chaebols and the government. Without government support, and protectionist measures shielding them from foreign competition it's unlikely they'd have grown as large and successful as they are today (similar to China today blocking foreign Big Tech companies from operating in China, to grow their own national champions).
I know less about the other Asian economies you mention, but the "East Asian Model"[3] runs contrary to what you say about hard work alone.
Chaebols of South Korea are same as big conglomerates and top 1% in USA who control livelihood of majority of Americans. So this will mean that USA is same as South Korea driven by America first policy.
USA foreign policy and access to market is also dependent on America first policy driven by large conglomerates not very different from those in South Korea, China and Japan. Recently there are ample examples where USA restricted market access when it’s own conglomerates are in trouble (using some flimsy excuse in the name of security and national interests).
Besides reading some report please spend time in those countries and you will know an average citizens commitment to hard work in general (don’t make exception as rule). Prosperity do not come due to government policy but due to hard work of majority.
Downvoters: Can you explain why you are downvoting? The last paragraph might be debated, but many downvotes with zero comments? That makes no sense to me. The first two paragraphs are spot-on.
Even if you don't like the style of last paragraph, if you just look at the number of hours per worker in those countries, it is globally leading. There is real substance in this comment.
There are leaps of logic here that do not compute.
For one, I would not trust any news that comes out about India right now. Both sides of reporting are so heavily colored by ideology, that most reports might as well be pledges of allegiance rather than sources of information. India's biggest boom came during 1991 (liberalization) which was a failure of democracy pushed through during a political and economic crisis. (Domestic terrorist assassination of popular leader + IMF threatening India to liberalize against popular opinion).
If anything, the economic failures of Modi showcase the problems of large democracies. It always devolves into populism and procedural in-action, where major changes can only be done by stealth; and thus haphazardly.
> North Korea, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and India
It has to be a cruel joke to mention India with 3 failed military states, when it has one of the the strongest election commissions in the world.
> concentration of power and wealth in the hands of selected few
Given that India was run by 1 family for 60 years, the burden of Proof is on you to show that the current Govt. has a greater concentration of wealth. India has always had a concentration of power in a few hands. It's just that the current bearers of that power are disliked by western elites.
PS: I do not particularly love Modi. His economic policies have been shoddy and I would prefer someone less tied to a narrow view of hinduism. But, the Indian opposition right now is more incompetent than fish climbing a tree.
________________________
> Confucius teachings
> government did was not to come in the way of the people to have better life through hard work.
Could not be farther away from the truth. Each of these govts inserted themselves strongly into personal life and their growth came during a short duration of strong authoritarianism.
Japan (A world superpower in 1945 with high HDI) and China (as large as large govt) should be the last countries to be referenced for the point you are making.
It showcase the result of disrespect of plurality in society and promoting hatred and Nazi style Hindu supremacy forgetting the complex geopolitical and cultural diversity of India.
> Given that India was run by 1 family for 60 years,
You mean to say India was an authoritarian state ruled by one family for last 60 years and only after 2014 it became free (HDI, poverty alleviation, education, from free to partly free tell a different story). Anyways these statement reflects the ardent follower logic of Hindu nationalist (in India it will be called M--- bhakt logic).
> Each of these govts inserted themselves strongly into personal life
Lived long enough in all these countries to know first hand that the development happened not because of the government but by work done by its citizens. Indeed USA itself is reaping the benefits of the hard work done by its own citizens with emphasis on science and engineering, not superstition and same apply to all these countries.
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China in spite of very different political system were able to achieve similar trajectory of growth founded in hard work with emphasis on science and engineering instead of superstition. So they are a reference point.
China took 1.4 billion people out of poverty and made them moderately wealthy society with almost 99% literacy rates and 100% in all tier 1,2 and 3 cities. Its not because of the government, but because of its people and their emphasis on education.
During Mao Tse-tung (毛泽东), China was an authoritarian state and government was in every walk of life and during that time it was behind India, when it came to all the parameters of HDI (human development index). Food was rationed and there is lost generation during that time which did not go to university at all. All the progress happened when authoritarianism started to fade away from society giving space to it's citizens to learn, work and earn a decent living without state.
May be brush up some history on these countries, you will realize that their growth story is rooted in their citizens quest for better life through education, hard work with emphasis on science and engineering instead of superstition, race or religion supremacy theory.
I am delighted. You must've helped me win some bingo out there.
* Nazi style Hindu supremacy
* M--- bhakt
* Mao Tse-tung (毛泽东)
* free to partly free
1 question: Where in South Delhi are you from ?
Also, while we are at ad-hominems..at least make the right accusations. I'm a secular (in the western sense) atheist who used to be called 'deshdrohi' in university because of my lack of attachment to Bollywood, Cricket, Hindi or Hindu. I couldn't care less about mandirs, hindu supremacy or love jihad.
> hard work with emphasis on science and engineering instead of superstition
That is pretty much India's motto right now, and such narrow perspectives on progress rarely yield good results.
p.s: I fully recognize that my comment is snarky and not considered to be right for HN. Feel free to flag it if need by.
I do not have any intention of flagging your comment a reader can see the intent in words. So I will prefer people read them instead of greying it out by downvoting.
Not from India, so probably you have some ill conceived logic in display here.
> I'm a secular (in the western sense) atheist
Not really given your statement and words used in your previous comments you seem to be a very Hindu nationalist, spreading the pseudo information that India is an authoritarian state ruled by 1 family since independence until 2014.
> That is pretty much India's motto right now
Yes precisely building a society embedded in hindu religious supremacy, pseudo science (e.g. Anti-radiotion chip from cow dung [1], cow urine for Covid [2], superstition [3], fake claims of Stephen Hawking supporting vedas and vedic theory of science by Union Minister of India [4]).
> China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan grown exponentially not due to authoritarian rule but due to the hard work of their people and in the belief that with hard work they can change life (very much embedded in Confucius teachings).
The assertion here is that "Confucian values" led to these countries economically developing from un-developed to developed economies. Yet earlier you state the "counter example" of North Korea being an authoritarian regime that brought about economic downfall.
So,
"Confucian values" + authoritarian regime = economic growth (SK)
Czech person here, I have to agree. During the soviet era my country, a pre-WWII (even post-WWII, as the Czech part of Czechoslovakia has only seen very light fighting) industrial powerhouse, was reduced to an underdeveloped dwarf. Thirty years later I'm living in a modern country, typing on a MacBook, receiving healthcare, paying my taxes with corruption only noticeable at the highest levels of the hierarchy (politicians, union leaders), certainly not throughout the country.
I believe this has to do with the proximity of other developed and modern countries, economically, but also culturally. To put it bluntly, nobody wants to do business with a bunch of cavemen.
A lot of our original industrial development prior to 1900 was done in conditions of very limited democracy. Only wealthy people and the middle class could vote before 1907. (After that, franchise was extended to all men over 24.) Prior to that, you had to pay some minimal yearly taxes in order to have a vote, which excluded majority of the population.
After 1989, a large element in our prosperity was geographic proximity to Germany. Germans outsourced a lot of production to the Visegrad states. It definitely helped grow our GDP, but it also puts sorta-kinda ceiling on it. The most valuable parts of the entire production chain are still back in the West and they are not going to move abroad.
BTW Viktor Orbán is a great friend of the German investors and they protect him quite a bit as well. It seems that investors do not care about local state of politics much, only about stability.
> The most valuable parts of the entire production chain are still back in the West and they are not going to move abroad.
Related to that, it does seam than whenever Skoda the brand is about to surpass the models of its parent (German) company, Volkswagen, the powers that be decide that that behaviour should stop immediately.
The most recent example is the Mk2 Skoda Superb, which imho was miles ahead in terms of style above the Passat, and further back the Mk1 Skoda Octavia was also miles ahead in terms of reliability compared to anything that the VW brand had.
Wow. I recently discovered Botswana during a deep dive on Wikipedia. Botswana is the size of Metropolitan France, which has a population of ~60 million, but Botswana only has a population of 2.2 million! Resources? They have the most productive diamond mine in the world that consistently produces the highest quality large diamonds in the world.
GDP per capita? 18,500+ USD. They are solidly middle class by global standards.
Also, as I understand, the country lies just outside of the tsetse fly belt, which is very important for human development. Interestingly (and sadly), they also have one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world, but seem to be managing it very well. (Wiki says: <<As of 2014, Botswana has the third-highest prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS, with roughly 20% of the population infected.>>)
I agree, the Botswana example is not exactly what India is looking for given the history there. To this day, the TSwanna have not diversified from diamonds. They have no industrialization to speak of.
But they have amazing, world-class nature. Tourism is, and will, be a large part of their economic growth. Mostly, they are focused on very high income travelers, not unlike Bhutan.
> But my research indicates that Demovracy does truly have a shoddy track record at spurring development.
First step is to stop referring to "democratic republics" as "Democracies" with a capital D. That's a popular misuse of the term that rulers love to abuse. It's fair to call it newspeak.
Voting every 5 years for 1 entity to rule a whole country does not make a government democratic. It's merely an escape hatch, a stopgap to tyrannical rulers. It prevents the worst, but doesn't prevent the typical government cronyism.
I think of democracy like a diversified portfolio. Putting all of your money into one stock can go either incredibly well or incredibly poorly, depending on what the one stock is.
Diversifying the portfolio is the safest option; it may not yield the highest returns, but it also never yields the lowest returns.
> Diversifying the portfolio is the safest option; it may not yield the highest returns, but it also never yields the lowest returns.
If we wave our hands and discount all the failed democracies (that turn into autocracies, or fall apart in civil wars), and if you think that the difference between India's development in the past 30 years and China's development in the past 30 years is just a matter of 'it's not the highest returns...'
One's GDP/capita grew from $300 to $10,000, the other from $300 to $2000 in that timespan. That's not a difference of 'not the highest returns', that's a quantitative difference between remaining in poverty on one hand, and a hundreds of millions of people living Western lifestyles on the other.
I think it's safe to say at this point that the historic record indicates that democracy and economic development are likely to be orthogonal.
This is a good comment. I would like to add Hongkong into that list, as it was a United Kingdom colony without any serious form of democracy during its crazy period of "Asian Tiger" growth. (Nominally, it had a local legislature, but it was toothless to pass any serious labour or economic reforms.)
Let's dig deeper. You wrote: <<But my research indicates that Democracy does truly have a shoddy track record at spurring development.>>
Zero trolling: I am always curious: How it possible that fast food restaurants (McD, etc.) in Danmark can pay the equivalent of 15 USD per hour? Yet, Danmark remains incredibly economically competitive. It is regularly short of labour (unemployment rate is considered too low by national economists). I picked Danmark instead of Norway (which has similar issues), because Danmark is not an oil major country. From the economically liberal view, Danmark should be crumbling under the weight of its personal income tax regime and globally leading wages for unskilled workers.
Can anyone with formal economics training comment on this matter? We would appreciate your thoughts.
> Nominally, it had a local legislature, but it was toothless to pass any serious labour or economic reforms.
Its members were appointed by the governor until the last ~10 years. The last governor Chris Patten implemented democratic reforms at the very end, despite protests by the Chinese government. A meaningfully democratic legislature only existed between 1994 and 1997. Before that, the legislature wasn't even "toothless", it was simply a rubber stamp, or (less cynically) a way for the government to consult influential business interests ($$$$) about impending government policies.
While not underdeveloped, huge swathes of Eastern and Central Europe have seen tremendous economic growth since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the institution of liberal democracy through the region.
It's sad, but it seems to be true, and knowing the truth is always better. We can like and promote democracy without marketing it as something it isn't, and if we're not afraid to identify areas where it isn't competitive, we can find ways to mitigate that.
I haven't read the book, rather I've only seen a long talk he gave on the topic, but Ha-Joon Chang's "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism" believes the crucial component is not democracy, but rather modern incarnations of capitalism (let's just call it neoliberalism).
He argues that the US in particular became so wealthy in huge part due to it's non-free trade practices (while still being relatively democratic). Countries may liberalize later in development, but not before building their own industrial base, etc. My memory is quite hazy on the latter part -- I should read the actual book. However I can recommend seeking out his viewpoint.
Edit: his book is not so much a critique of capitalism, as a critique of free trade orthodoxy for developing nations.
You forgot Poland. It never had colonies. It was destroyed completely in WW2. Then exploited by the communists until there was no almost no economy left in 1989.
By today's standard Poland of 1989 can definitely be described as an underdeveloped country (annual gdp per capita $1700 usd - but the majority of population lived on a lot less). Infrastructure in shambles. Major roads and rail links designed not along North-South as the country's economy needs, but East-West to facilitate transfer of Soviet army if needed. Fast forward 30 years and things look pretty much developed. A big chunk of it was thanks to EUs money(since 2004), but one could argue access to local market for Western companies repaid them the expense many times over...
Sure there are issues with the quality of the democracy (specially inability to modernise juidiciary in last 30 years), amount of emotional arguments in public discourse etc, but overall IMO it is a good example of a democratic country that managed to make the standard of living a lot better for its citizens.
I grew up in Ostrava, close to the Polish border. Poland in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a fairly poor country. There were massive shortages of stuff in shops, a serious inflation (I remember looking at a 500,000 zloty banknote in a mixture of awe and dread) and a black market that was doing its best and worst to keep people supplied somehow.
Polish economic miracle is incredible. Warsaw looks like a Manhattan built on a steppe, and living standards of ordinary Polish citizens have gone through the roof in a single generation.
No non-colonial democracy has managed to go from underdeveloped to developed since WW2.
SK, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Chile and Malaysia all had their key growth during authoritarian regimes. Many later transitioned to democracies, but that's easy when the hard part is done.
Sadly, I reached this when desperately looking for a democratic country for India (my home country) to emulate as a model. As a believer in democracy, I would love to be corrected. But my research indicates that Demovracy does truly have a shoddy track record at spurring development.